GENESIS, XLIV. 5.

"Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth ?"

cup.

An Assyrian cup, copied from an Egyptian diviningIt was brought from Nineveh, and is now in the British Museum. The engraved ornaments are on the inside. The Sphinx, wearing the double crown of Egypt (see Note on Exod. xxix. 6), the Beetle, or Scarabæus, with a ball between its front legs, and the Winged Sun (See Note on 2 Chron. xxviii. 2), are all Egyptian emblems. The Egyptians were so far the teachers of superstition to all their neighbours that the Assyrians copied these emblems on their sacred cups.

GENESIS, XLIX. 10.

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come."

Or, more literally,

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the staff of power from between his feet, until he come to Shiloh.

An Egyptian seated, holding in his right hand his sceptre, and in his left his staff of inheritance, the marks of his rank as a landowner and as the head of his family. In this case the staff does not rest between his feet, but it explains the Hebrew figure of Speech.

From a painting in stucco in the British Museum.

GENESIS, L. 26.

"So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt."

An Egyptian mummy, with its three cases or coffins made of acacia wood, from Lower Egypt, now in Dr. Lee's Museum at Hartwell. Such may have been Joseph's coffin, except that the Egyptian mummy-cases are usually covered with paintings of the gods, and with hieroglyphical inscriptions to their honour.

For the Egyptian process of embalming, in the case of the rich, an opening was made in one side of the stomach, through which they removed the softer portions of the body which could not be preserved. The whole of the brain was also removed through the nose, without injuring

the outer surface of the skull. The body was soaked in mineral pitch, a substance called mum, which flows from the rock in some places on the western shore of the Red Sea, but is more common near the Dead Sea. The body was then wrapped in countless thin linen bandages, and sometimes the whole again soaked in pitch. The pitch was boiling hot, as we learn from the linen and bones being charred. The operation occupied seventy days, as mentioned in verse 3. During this time the ornamental stone or wooden cases were being completed, which had probably been bought ready-made, even with much of the inscription written, but with blanks left to receive the name of the deceased. Stone beetles, and other images, were often wrapped under the bandages.

In Upper Egypt the mummy-cases were often of stone; but this was less frequently the case in Lower Egypt.

EXODUS, I. 8.

"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph."

The hieroglyphical name of King Thothmosis II., the first king of Upper Egypt that was also king of Lower

Egypt; hence we naturally conclude that it was under his rule that the services of Joseph in the Lower Country were forgotten.

The Phenician Shepherds, who had harassed the Egyptians, had been conquered and driven out by King Amosis, and had settled in Canaan, where they are called Philistines. Soon after that, we must suppose, Joseph and his family settled in the Delta, while the Shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians: chap. xlvi. 34. This king, Thothmosis III., was the fourth successor of Amosis. During these years Egypt had been rising rapidly in wealth; and the buildings, obelisks, and statues, all covered with inscriptions, prove its high degree of civilisation.

The king's first name is Menhophra, and he was probably the king from whom the Era of Menophra, of B.C. 1322, received its name. The second name is Thothmes-Hob.

EXODUS, II, 23.

"And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died."

The hieroglyphical name of King Amunothph II., the son and successor of Thothmosis III. If we have been